The Land Across

10 NAALA

For a long time after that I lay awake, remembering where I was and thinking about the dream. Finally I got up and went to the bathroom. When I flushed the toilet it made so much noise I felt sure it would wake up Naala, but it did not. I washed my hands and went out into the big room, naked. There was milk and butter in Naala’s little refrigerator, and bread in her breadbox. I ate some and drank a glass of milk, washed up, and went back to bed to think some more.

It seemed to me that this country I was in was the stake. I was stuck on it just like Russ and trying to get off, but I never would. I would die here, like the doll on the stake in my dream. It might be better to resign myself to that, I thought. To accept it. I decided I would try, but there was always a little piece of me that was looking for a way off the stake, a way home.

In the morning Naala asked me to fix our breakfasts. I am not really much of a cook, but I can boil water if you know what I mean. I can do simple things and fix good, simple food. We had poached eggs on toast and one sausage apiece, with hot tea because there was no coffee. (I would have cooked more if there had been more to cook.) Naala did not compliment me on the food, but she did not complain either. She just said to stay the way I was, with shoes and socks and a towel tied around me for a kilt, until she got back. Then she went out.

That was my chance to snoop around the whole apartment and I took it. If I had found anything really sensational, I would tell you here, but I did not. What impressed me most was what I did not find. I did not find any pictures of Naala. None at all. I thought maybe there would be one of her with some guy. Or a school picture with two or three other girls. Something like that. There were not any.

The big handicap I had was that even though I could speak the language a little I could not read it. I found an address book, and I could see that some of the numbers had something to do with location and some were probably phone numbers. But I could not read the names. Nothing like that. There were a few books. One with pictures seemed to be about stage magicians, not how the tricks worked but how they looked on stage. There were pictures of their posters and photographs. I looked at all the faces without recognizing a single one.

Most of the books did not have pictures, so I could not even guess what they were about. There were maybe a dozen books altogether, plus the address book.

I found a douche bag and three condoms, and some pills and so forth that I could not be sure of. I also found a cleaning kit for a handgun. (I could tell it was for a handgun because the cleaning rod was only about a foot long.) There was a good deal of other stuff, of course, pots and pans, cosmetics, a sewing basket, and so forth. But nothing else that really told me anything about her.

There was a radio, too, but no TV. I turned on the radio wondering who was broadcasting for the Legion now, and it was me.

They had gotten me because I was an American. I am sure I said that. The idea was to make the government think they were getting their ideas over to the U.S. and getting new members here and so on. They wanted to look bigger than they were because they were not really very big at all. So they had been broadcasting in German and they had wanted to add English to it.

Maybe they had found out that making the government think they were big made the government want to cut them down to size. I hoped they had and were being more careful, and I was surprised at myself when I found out I hoped that. Pretty soon I got tired of listening to a bad recording of one of my old broadcasts and found some music. Some of it was pretty good, but I figured it was probably Austrian or German.

When Naala came home she had two shopping bags full of clothes for me. They were not as cool as the clothes I would have bought for myself back home, and everything was ready-made. But they were better than most people had where I was.

She said, “You like them. I will not ask.”

I turned off the radio. “Yeah, I do.”

“I see you smile. They have take all you have? In the prison?”

I tried to explain that the Legion of the Light had not brought anything but me and the clothes I was wearing.

“Possessions come and go.” She sat down. “We have them until we lose them or they wear out. Money the same. Perhaps we lose it. Perhaps we spend it. These are the same.”

I said, “Sure. Lose it where I’ll find it, please.”

She laughed. “Now you have again the nice clothes. For these you owe me very much and must tell me something. Rathaus is now free. Where will he go?”

“That’s easy. He’ll go to the American embassy.”

“It is watched. If he go, we have him. Another place.”

“Maybe he got past your watchers. Why don’t you let me check it out?”

“No. He is not there. Where else?”

I thought.

“While you think, we must eat. There is a café I like. You can sit in the trousers that cost me so much?”

I said, “Sure.”

She stood up. “Then come with me. You must not spill food. Or coffee, or any such thing.”

The café we went to is the Tetrasemnos. It was eight or ten streets away, which made me glad she had not bought me new shoes. Maybe I can explain here that the Legion of the Light had taken my money and my watch and so forth but had left me my clothes and my shoes. The prison had taken the clothes but left me my shoes. It got me to thinking that if I ever got my hands on something really fancy I would put it in my shoes. Right then the only things I had in my shoes were my feet and my socks. I had not gone through her bags enough to know whether Naala had bought me new socks, but I hoped she had.

The café was up three flights of stairs and was sort of refined and quiet. You got the feeling that not many people went there, and the ones that did went because it was a place where you could sit for a long time and not get hassled. There was a sad guy with a thin mustache who played the violin. That was the only music there. He was good, too, I had to admit. He would play for a while up on a little stage they had there. Then he would start going around to tables. He would stand by your table and play something beautiful. If you gave him money, he would go away, but if you did not he would play something else beautiful. And so on, until you gave him money or you left. I would have given him money if I had any. I did not, and I was glad when Naala gave him something.

So that was the kind of place it was. A man and a really pretty girl were sitting at a table not very far from ours. The girl had a red fountain pen and was writing something on lined paper. She had small neat writing from what I could see of it, with none of the fancy flourishes some girls use. I could see she was not drawing little hearts for dots or anything like that.

The man just watched her. He had coffee and a little stem glass of brandy, and he would sip his coffee without looking at it, always watching her. He looked like he meant to eat her. Every so often a waiter would come by and pour more coffee in his cup, and he would pour a little brandy from his glass into the coffee. He never took his eyes off her to do it, though. When the violinist came around the pretty girl looked up at him and smiled, and the man took a bill from the side pocket of his jacket and gave it to him, but he never looked at him.

Only at the girl. That was after we had been there quite a while.

We sat down, and a waiter brought menus and wandered away. I said, “What’s good here?”

“Are you hungry?” Naala was grinning.

“Hell, yes.”

“Then everything is good. You have thought?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve thought a lot.”

“That is well.” She had a mean grin. “Those who work may eat. You understand this? So it is and so it must be. Those who do not work shall not eat. That is so, also.”

“Is thinking work?” I asked her.

“Some thinking is work. Yes? What is it you think? Rathaus does not go to your embassy. Where is it he goes instead? If you wish to eat, you must tell me.”

“You know about the dolls?”

She nodded in a way that told me absolutely nothing. Maybe she knew more than I did. Maybe she did not know a thing. Most likely it was somewhere between those two, but where was that? The nod did not tell.

“He and his partner made those dolls and sold them, in America at first but later all over the world. His partner was in change of production and R&D. Russ was in charge of sales and advertising. All that stuff. I don’t know if he sold any here.”

“I do not know also,” Naala said.

“My guess is he did. He didn’t tell me that, but I think so anyhow. He didn’t talk like this was some weird foreign country at the edge of the earth. You know what I mean? He talked like it was someplace most people know about. That’s not true, not in America anyway. But that was how Russ Rathaus thought.”

“So you think—?”

I nodded. “If he sold them here, he had connections here. Probably people he had never met face to face. But there’s lots of ways for businesspeople to get together on the Net. They see each other’s faces in their screens, or whatever the other guy wants to show them, a graph or a spreadsheet. Whatever. For Russ it would have had to be somebody who speaks English and is in the novelty business here. There can’t be a lot of guys like that.”

“None, perhaps. That could be.”

“He knew somebody here,” I insisted. “Somebody he’d done business with, somebody who might help him now, when he’s in a bind.”

Naala was quiet for a minute or two. Then she said, “You have thought, so you eat. What is it you like?”

I shrugged and said I would have whatever she was having. She ordered something I had never heard of that turned out to be a thick stew with lots of meat topped with sour cream. When it finally came, we ate it with fresh bread and butter and slices of raw onion. So nothing fancy, but the bowls were big, the stew was wonderful, the butter was soft enough to spread, and the bread was still warm from the oven.

As well as I can remember there had not been even one single time when I had left the table in the prison feeling like I had eaten a good meal, so I tore into this. Maybe I stopped once or twice to wonder whether the meat was beef or lamb. I know that before I was finished I asked the waiter and he said it was both, with some pork, too. Naala grinned and said it was good horse meat and she would never take me to a place where they served mule meat, but she was kidding.

I had about finished when a priest came over to our table. He smiled at us, and I knew right away who he was, but I could not remember his name. He must have known it from my face, because the first thing he said was, “Papa Zenon.”

Whatever it was I said then was meant to be polite. Probably I asked him to sit down, because he sat. “You speak our language now.”

“A little,” I told him. “I know I’m not very good.”

“We are none of us very good, as God knows. You have a new cousin?”

Naala said, “We are friends, that is all. I try to help him. He tries to help me. You will approve of this?”

“Oh, surely—I am sure you do well. You are fine people.” He looked back to me. “The funeral went well. You were concerned, I know. Everything was as you would have wished.”

I knew what he meant and said I would have liked to have been there.

“Another time, perhaps. You help this lady, whose name I do not know….”

Naala introduced herself.

“While she helps you. I will help you both, if I can. What is it you do?”

Naala said, “He is from Amerika. You must know this.”

Papa Zenon nodded.

“Our police do not like foreigners. Many are spies, and our police fear them. He is not a spy, but they put him in prison, a foolish charge so they are safe from him. I have arranged his release. For this he is grateful, I hope.”

“Very grateful,” I said.

“Now I buy the lunch. He has no money, no passport. He owes to the church for this funeral you speak of? He cannot pay, not now. Soon he will have money again, sent from Amerika where he has much. Then you will be paid.”

Papa Zenon smiled. “We do not charge for funerals. The dead repay us with their prayers. Should the living wish to make an offering in gratitude, their offering is accepted in the spirit in which it was given.”

“I’ll make an offering when I can,” I said. “I’ll be glad to, if I can find you.”

“I will not be difficult to find, my son. My church is that of Saint Barachisios in Puraustays. I travel, indeed, but only rarely and only when I must. A shepherd forced from his flock. One worries. One cannot do otherwise.” He licked his lips. “Tell me, do you know where your cousin is staying? Does she assist you?”

I said I thought she was back in Puraustays. I knew Naala would not want me to talk about what we were doing, and I had no idea what story she might cook up, so I asked what had brought him to the capital.

“Would you like lunch, Papa?” she put in. “I have said I pay for his, as I do. I will pay for yours, also.”

“You are kindness itself, but I have eaten. I came to your table only to say that the funeral went well, and the burial. I did not intend to intrude.”

“You do not intrude, Papa.” Naala looked at me as if to say what’s going on here?

I said, “Did you know I was here in the capital?”

“Oh, no! No one knows where you are, and certainly I did not.” He paused for a second to let me chew on that. “I came because His Excellency the Archbishop wishes to speak with me.”

I wanted to ask him about Kleon and Martya then, but I did not dare to.

Naala rescued me for the time being. “This is most interesting, and I hope to persuade you to tell us about it. I have seen His Excellency in the cathedral a score of times, it might be. Still I have never spoken to him. My Amerikan friend has never spoken to him either, of that I feel most sure. You must drink more coffee now—and eat something, too, if you wish it—and tell us of this. What is he like in private? What is it he says to you? There is trouble at your church in Puraustays?”

“No, none at all.” Papa Zenon looked deadly serious for a change. “I have written a book. It is a great mistake, I find, to write a book, because everyone looks upon you as an expert.”

Still sweating bullets I said, “I know what you mean.”

“As for His Excellency, it is far beyond my modest skill to capture his personality in mere words. He is a venerable priest, enfeebled in body though not in mind, a man of great kindness and great penetration.” Papa Zenon sighed. “A man who guards his tongue, and has a tongue to be feared. I am happy to say that I have escaped it thus far. But only thus far.”

“I am not one who pries.” Naala held her hand to her chest and did her best to look innocent. “If I pry now, you will tell me, I hope. Yet thousands must know. What is it, this book you have written? I might like to read. Has the library copies?”

Papa Zenon nodded. “I believe it does. I must look. There is a store below the cathedral. You will know it, I am sure. Crucifixes and icons, also religious books. We priests may write books, you understand.”

She nodded. “With the approval of the State, yes.”

“Of course. The archbishop must approve as well. This means he reads all the books we write while he sits on the throne. Mine, for example. May I for a moment boast? He congratulated me upon it.”

Naala signaled to the waiter that he was to bring Papa Zenon something.

“Its title is A Manual of Exorcism for Those in Holy Orders. May I explain?”

I said, “Yeah, I wish you would.”

“You must know that although small parishes have only a single priest, the pastor, larger ones have a pastor and an assistant, or several assistants. In your country it is different, perhaps. But in ours every pastor must appoint an exorcist. A pastor who has several assistants, as I do, appoints one of them in most cases. He may hold the office himself, however, if he chooses.”

The waiter brought more coffee, with a clean cup for Papa Zenon and a little plate of kolacky.

“I had been appointed exorcist while I was an assistant and had performed exorcisms, some successful, others less so. When I myself became a pastor, I quizzed my assistants on the subject. None knew anything beyond what is taught at the seminary. What seminarians learn concerning exorcism is quite perfunctory, I am sorry to say, and these scarcely knew that.” He sipped.

“In any event, I decided to retain the post myself. Since that time I have gained a certain fame, at least in Puraustays. Other exorcists visit me for advice and so on. As I have indicated, I decided to write a book. It was the labor of four years, but I am vain enough to believe that it contains much of value and some things of value that are not to be found elsewhere.”

“This is a large city,” Naala remarked.

“It is, and there must be many possessions here, fifty or sixty a year, I would imagine. Possibly His Excellency wishes me to treat such a case.” Papa Zenon picked up one of the little cakes, examined it, and returned it to the plate. “That is entirely possible, although he has not said so.”

I asked, “What does he say?”

Papa Zenon shook his head. “You can scarcely expect me to make His Excellency’s confidences a part of my table talk, my son.”

When he had gone, Naala asked, “Why did he come to you, and why did he join us so readily?”

I quoted, “‘I don’t trust that conductor. Why is he so short?’”

“And you mean by that…?”

“Nothing. It’s from a cartoon I watched one time, that’s all. Papa Zenon’s pretty short, and it popped into my head.”

“Those cakes.” Naala pointed to them. “Why did the waiter bring them?”

“Beats me. Maybe he was just being hospitable.”

“No. This priest of yours enters this café and does not look at the menu. He orders. It is not much, because he talks little to the waiter. Soon he sees you, and at once comes to our table. The waiter sees him there when I point to him. He brings more coffee and the little cakes, because the priest has ordered them.”

I said, “Maybe.”

“Not it may be. It is. Those things are so. The priest picks up a little cake, but his stomach is now tight. He does not eat. I, too, know this tightness of the stomach. When I see it in others, I know what it is I see.”

“Maybe he’s worried about me.”

“He is worried by you. Possibly me, also, but mostly by you. So it appeared. He talks to you without result. Then he is more worried. He leaves, fearing we may see his concern. He makes the funeral for you? He blesses the burial? So he said.”

I nodded.

“Who is buried? A relative? A friend?”

“Just a body.” I told her about the Willows. “We didn’t want to put it back behind that mirror, and Martya thought it would be less likely to bother us if a priest buried it.”

Naala looked thoughtful. “You did not see her in the mirror, you say. It is this girl.”

“Yes, it was. I never saw it until I took down the mirror.”

“Then it is this Martya the priest should fear, no? She has the second sight. Is she here, in this city?”

I shook my head. “She’s still back in Puraustays, as far as I know.”

“She is your cousin? Says she is?”

I nodded. “Sometimes.”

“In a bar you met her?”

“No, but we went to some clubs together afterward. We’d wait until Kleon—that’s her husband—was asleep, then go to a club and dance for an hour or so.” I stopped, thinking how weird it must have sounded to Naala. “I was his prisoner, or supposed to be.”

She chuckled. “This they do in the provinces. With what were you charged?”

“I don’t know. They never told me.”

“The charges have been dropped? You have left this Kleon’s house before you are taken?”

I tried to explain.

“If what you say is so, he has been shot. Your Martya is now become a widow lady.” Naala laughed. “She is good for you between the sheets? You liked her?”

I shrugged. “She was okay.”

“You think I do not understand your English word, but I do. It is as I say. Your Martya has come here to look for you. So it seems. The priest has seen her here. This I also believe. Should we let her find you?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

“No more do I. How old do you think me?”

I made the best guess I could, then knocked off ten years. “About twenty-seven.”

She smiled. “Never again, and this you know. There are things I can show, and I will. Martya I cannot show. Not yet. But we will find her.” She waved the waiter over and asked for more coffee.

When he had gone, I said, “Aren’t we about finished here?”

“Where will we go if we leave as you wish?”

I shrugged. “Up to you.”

“So. We leave, then stand in the street discussing where we go. To the art museum, I say. You say to the concert. A passerby stops to say the zoo. I shake my head, fearing the keepers there will never let you leave.” Naala laughed. “Let us discuss here instead. They will not force us to go, I have not paid our bill. Let us rationally consider what it is we do. You knew Rathaus in Puraustays?”

I explained that I had never met any other Americans in Puraustays.

“In Amerika you know him.”

“No. I never so much as saw him until they put him in my cell.”

“The Legion has him, you think?”

“You said it didn’t, that they would have taken me instead.”

“What I think does not matter. What is it you think?”

I said, “I don’t know what has taken him.”

“But not the Legion of the Light?”

I shook my head.

“You think something you fear. That is what I think, because I see it in your eyes. What is it?”

I said, “I don’t know what it is.”

“I ask again, where is it we should go?”

“I’ve already answered that. We ought to find out whether he had business connections here and check them out.”

“This still you think.”

I nodded.

“I have the idea, too. First I make the telephone call. You must excuse me.”

I thought she was going to the rest room, but she waltzed out of the café. I sat there awhile, mostly watching the pretty girl with the big red pen and the man who watched her, until the waiter came over. “You wish something more, sir?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“The lady…?”

“She’ll be back,” I said. I thought of telling him I had no money, which was the truth. But I did not say it.

“Perhaps she will want something more.” The waiter rubbed his chin.

I told him I did not know.

“Some nice fruits, it might be. I will tell the kitchen.”

The girl with the red pen looked up at me and smiled, and I smiled back. When Naala sat down with me again the girl was bent over her paper like before but I was still smiling.

“You are happy. You have think of something new.”

I shook my head. “I was just thinking that now I’m out of that prison and sitting in this nice café drinking good coffee. Where did you find a phone?”

“There are painted boxes on poles. Them you must have seen. They are for the police and I have a key. What is it, this new thing you think of? You must tell me.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about our problem,” I said. “How did your phone call go?”

“Well, of course. I have called the station nearest the palace. The archbishop must be at home for us at three o’clock. They will send a policeman to him. His secretary will protest, our policeman will insist that it must be so. He has a gun, the secretary none. Perhaps he fires at the floor. A better chance there is no need. The archbishop will be at home at three. He waits and more nervous grows. At four we come, I think. A little after four it may be. He tells us why he summons—”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’ve got that, anyway. But the archbishop lives in a palace?”

Naala lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “In a big house. Always this is called a palace. For bishops also. It must be big because offices are needed, not just rooms for sleeping and eating. What is your new idea? Still you do not say?”

“Because it isn’t much of an idea, really. Anybody would think of it.”

“I, not.” She touched her chest. “Tell me.”

“Well, Russ has a wife. Her name is Rosalee, and she got arrested the same time he did.”

“Ah! He will try to arrange the escape for her.”

“If she’s still in prison.” I nodded. “She may have been released by this time. If she has, she’s probably back in the States. That’s the first thing he’ll try to find out—whether she’s safe back home. If she is, he might try to get her to help him. It’ll depend on what he needs.”

I stopped for a minute to think. Russ and I had been pretty good friends. “He’s not really a spy, you know. He isn’t dangerous to your government at all.”

“About him I do not care,” Naala told me. “It is those who have freed him who concern me. You say he is not a spy, and it may be you are right. If you are, why it is they free him?”

I thought I knew, but I just shook my head.

“In time, we learn this. I think your new idea most good. This surprises you?”

“Yes. I’m surprised all right.”

“It is good first because we can begin before we speak with His Excellency. The Harktay—the prison for women—is here in this city. We will go there and speak with them. Perhaps also to this wife.”